The Character Lounge
by catthegreat
Summary: Naruto's upset that he had to work on his birthday and missed his own party. Sasuke offers to celebrate late with him. Established SasuNaruSasu.


-_The Character Lounge_-

Naruto was sulking in the lounge, lamenting his bad luck. It was the 14th of October, and he was finally given some respite from work. But of course that meant he'd missed his own birthday. And from the sounds of it, he'd missed a pretty bad ass party complete with the largest cake any of his friends had ever seen.

It wasn't his fault he was off filming the final scenes of a zombie apocalypse story, and couldn't be there for it.(1) The least his asshole friends could do was save him some cake. Or postpone the party. Celebrating without him was so beyond rude.

But as if missing his birthday weren't enough, he'd had to spend the next two days shooting scenes for that basketball fic and the prelims for the chuunin exam.(2) He was so, _so_, tired. Geez. Wasn't the author supposed to be in college or something? Where did she get all this free time? _Someone_ was obviously consorting with demons. That, or her grades were slipping. Or both. She _was_ evil, after all.

His thoughts were starting to sink deeper into the self-pity realm when the door opened, revealing none other than his raven haired boyfriend.

"I thought I'd find you sulking in here." Sasuke remarked, plopping down on the oversized couch beside him.

"Come to rub in how great my party was without me?"

The raven snorted. "Idiot, I didn't go either. In case you forgot, I was right there with you, turning into a zombie."

"Well you could've gone after that scene was over."

"And miss your gripping performance with Sakura in the RV? I think not."

Naruto scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "You really thought it was gripping? I thought it was maybe a little short…"

"No it was good. I would've liked to know what happened to Sakura after you changed, but I think the intention was that we _wouldn't_ know."

The blond jerked his head toward Sasuke in shock. "After I turned? What?"

Sasuke sighed. "You aren't that stupid, are you? After all, you were a physics major in one of the stories…" (3)

Naruto just blinked in confusion.

"You were bitten by me in our goodbye scene, Naruto. Even if I hadn't turned yet, I could still transfer the disease to you. Did you really not realize that, even after the whole neck scratching thing?"

"That was why she had me scratch my neck?!" The blond exclaimed. "I thought it was just a nervous thing because I was travelling alone with a character I didn't know the first name of! Damn! She killed me off on my birthday?!"

A smirk appeared on the raven's face. "It would appear so."

"That witch." He cursed. "Not only did I miss my party, but I was _killed_. That's just great. Even _Rei_ was able to go, because _her_ scenes were finished earlier, and she's not even a real character!"

Moving lightning fast, Sasuke covered the blond's mouth with his hand. "Careful, dobe. Don't let them hear you say that. They're already all wound up after Kiba yelled about Rei getting more scenes than him, and she started an 'OCs are characters too' movement." He removed his hand from Naruto's mouth.

The blond raised his eyebrows. "OCs are characters too movement? She would do that." He shifted his weight, so he was now completely facing Sasuke. "By the way, what does your brother think about his new love interest? Rumor has it she'll be appearing in Fallout too."

Sasuke just shrugged. "You know Itachi; he never tells me his feelings about things like this."

"Yeah, he really doesn't."

"Although I did catch him coming out from her room the other morning."

The blond guffawed. "After spending the night?"

"I'd assume so."

Naruto laughed at that one for a while.

They sat there in comfortable silence for a bit, until Sasuke smirked. "Hey if you're still upset, we can celebrate your birthday right here. In the couch, on the floor, against the wall…"

"I don't know why she portrays you as being the repressed silent type," Naruto remarked, turning a lovely shade of pink. "You never shut up."

"Hn. You bring out the worst in me."

"Wow. Love you too, teme."

The raven leaned his head back against the couch. "Although I suppose we should count ourselves lucky we've taken this long to die in one of the stories."

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, I heard the SNK group had their main character killed off in her second story. Apparently caused a lot of actual drama between him and his love interest."

"Mhm."

"And the card game players…Yu-Gi-Oh's cast. I guess their two main people have broken up, had one die, and one pushed to alcoholism in like all of their fics. They gotta be glad she hasn't written anything further on them." Naruto's head tilted to the side. "And I don't think any of them will for a little bit at least; NaruSasu day is coming up soon."

A growl came from the raven. "Only in your dreams would you dominate me, blondie."

Naruto grinned a sadistic little smile. "Really? That's not what you said last night. Or the night before. Or the night before that…"

He huffed. "Well we can't let the fangirls know that. You and I both know they favor _me_ as the top."

The grin he'd been sporting earlier slipped off the blond's face, turning into a scowl. "Yeah, I know."

Sasuke noticed the dark look and quickly moved to remedy it. "Although I suppose for your birthday, I can admit it just this once."

"It's not my birthday," Naruto pouted.

Sasuke grabbed the blond's chin and turned it towards him, so Naruto's blue eyes met his dark grey ones. "It can be your birthday all month if you want it to. We both know she likes you better anyways; I didn't even get a cake on my birthday."

"That's because you scare people Sasuke. She doesn't determine who gets what; that's all us. Plus she likes Itachi better than everyone – myself included – and still killed him off in the zombie story."

"Hn. She still doesn't like me."

"Well can you blame her? Have you _read_ our canon?" (4)

The raven scowled at a stain in the couch, as if it had done him some wrong. "I'm a bipolar jackass who can't make up his mind about whether to destroy the village or become its leader."

"Quite honestly, I hate canon you too. You never pay attention to me. It's always Itachi this, Itachi that."

"Oh really? Is that why you're all '_Sasukeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee'_ all the time?" He used a high nasally voice in his impression.

This time it was Naruto who scowled. "Well, canon me's an idiot who can't even figure out my own feelings. I swear the real author can't make up his mind if I'm smart or not; every other chapter has me doing stupid shit I would never _actually_ do." His expression changed to a thoughtful one. "Although at least _he _didn't miss my birthday."

"Yeah, he just forgot when it was this year. Didn't the birthday chapter come out like three weeks ago?"

"Whatever! Time flows faster in ninja-land! That's all!"

Sasuke had his fingers stuffed in his ears. "Too loud."

Naruto smacked the raven's hands. "Shut up. You sound like Shikamaru."

The smirk reappeared on Sasuke's face. "Fine, I'll shut up. As long as we can go celebrate your birthday now."

The blond looked around uneasily, as if sensing something. "Can we wait? I feel like someone's watching us."

The raven rolled his eyes. "No one's watching us. You're paranoid."

"And you talk too much for a silent, mysterious character. Shut up, I'm trying to hear."

Sasuke slumped back against the couch, arms crossed against his chest. He humored Naruto for a few minutes, watching as the blond head flipped back and forth, as if trying to catch someone in the act of eavesdropping. Idiot. The raven rolled his eyes. "No one is here, Naruto. You're crazy."

But the blond didn't respond. Instead, he got up and wandered over to the door. He sat there, ear against it for a moment, before pulling it open. To Sasuke's complete surprise, a figure clothed in an Akatsuki cloak tumbled into the room. It unfolded itself, straightening up to a height just short of the blond, long brunette hair tumbling down its back. He recognized the character immediately.

"Rei." It was said as a growl. The girl's response was interrupted by the blond's own reaction.

"Aha! I _told_ you someone was listening!"

"Hola Sasuke-chan, Juliet."

Naruto facepalmed. "The zombie fic is over, Rei. You can call me Naruto now."

She shrugged. "Don't want to."

Sasuke was already on his feet. "Out."

She pouted in response. "Aw, Sasuke-chan, you're so mean to me. I wasn't interrupting something, was I?" Her eyebrows wiggled.

"Perv," Naruto muttered under his breath.

"You know perfectly well what you were interrupting. Get out of here; I mean it!"

She ticked her finger back and forth at him. "Now, now. No need to be rude. I was just here to deliver something to Naruto."

The blond raised his eyebrows. "Deliver something?"

"He doesn't want whatever it is," Sasuke interjected before Rei could respond.

Naruto looked back and forth between the two of them before speaking. "Why can't you two just get along for once?"

The girl shrugged. "It's in my character design. I'm _supposed_ to drive him nuts." She jabbed her thumb in the raven's direction, as if he weren't standing in the room with them.

Sasuke appeared right behind her, using her lack of attention to push her toward the door. "That's nice. Now get out and give my brother his coat back."

She spun out of his grip, twirling around to show off the outfit. "But doesn't it look good on me?"

"No," the raven deadpanned. "Leave."

"Fine." But she turned to Naruto once more, pulling something out of her pocket. A key. "Happy birthday. Everyone felt bad about having the party without you, so we pitched in and got you guys a condo." The blond reached out and took the key wordlessly. "It's a nice secluded place up in the mountains. We thought you might like it."

"Thanks." Naruto smiled at her.

She grinned back, before turning to wave at Sasuke. "Just don't let the author find out or she'll never leave you in peace." The door slammed shut behind her, leaving the two guys alone.

Naruto turned back to Sasuke. "Well you heard her. Better get out of here before we have to work again. Wouldn't want the author to know about this."

Sasuke turned his head upwards thoughtfully. "Oh, I think she knows," he said softly.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Naruto left the room to get his suitcase, leaving Sasuke alone. The raven smiled slightly, still gazing at the ceiling.

"This must just be her birthday present to you."

* * *

**AN: **_Fouth wall? What forth wall? Haha. I had to interject some humor in there. Hang on, let's do the footnotes first:_

_(1) See You in Hell _

_(2) The Alley Out Back and Fallout: Chasing Hokage respectively_

_(3) Two actually: The Smartest Idiot and The Stupidest Genius_

_(4) The canon is driving me absolutely nuts right now. A giant penis tree as the ultimate bad guy? Really Kishimoto? And the constant bipolarness of Sasuke that my Sasuke mentioned is irritating (plus he's sometimes really OOC in the canon which is unacceptable). Not to mention Naruto's dumbassedness that he grew out of suddenly reappearing places makes me wanna scream. The war is going on too long and I'm getting annoyed._

_Back to author's notes. So yeah. That was fun. I realized I forgot Naruto's birthday, and then when I checked dates I realized I'd beein finishing up the zombie fic all Friday (the 10th of October). I imagine Naruto would be pretty pissed at that, so the fic came out. Also, I'm super uncreative with OCs, so you'll be seeing Rei as a super minor character in Fallout, because I'd rather reuse her than come up with a new one. Hope you enjoyed! Reviews are love._


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